If it is against another highly ranked team as part of playoff for a national championship......YES!!!
KP....you ever been outside in those conditions?? I have numerous times......working convention center dock areas and I can tell you it is absolutely brutal and is not meant for football
Amen KP.... You mean like they do in every other organized football league in the country including FCS college and the NFL ..... in Green Bay, Chicago, New England, Denver, Kansas City, Cincy, Pittsburgh, Cleveland.....? Your agenda is transparent, there is no other rational explanation...... You are the only SEC guy on the board that is afraid to compete. Why is that?
Why do you assume the games will be played in mid Jan??? The play offs can start first week of Dec if the NCAA mandates schedule changes. Remove the 12th game , and we're right on track. The BCS sites can still be used for the semi's and/or finals. So you greatly mitigate the risk of horrid weather for playoff games.
The point is Scott the nature of the game would change. Not many care a lick about the NIT........they would care less about bowl games if there were playoffs in Decemkber. i am not opposed to playoffs so much as I am opposed to changing the game in dramatic fashion and also in diluting the product. In a 16 team playoff scenario the champion would play 4 games after the regular season.....17 games total in a major conference that has a championship game. That's too many for college teams that do not have the depth of NFL teams. If we had a 16 team playoff I would want to do completely away with the conference title games and reduce the season to 10 games. I can't see the ADs in charge of the athletic budgets agreeing with that.
If you are going to base an argument upon assumed facts, the factual assumptions should be at least marginally possible. If you had substitued the words Columbus or Madison for Michigan in your hypothetical argument, your point would have been made more cogently.
I feel your pain Bobda. National semifinal not as likely to happen in Madison......but the cold certainly is. Columbus?........certainly the game could take place......and by mid Jan. the cold could too.
Like the NFL, weather be damned through the semifinals, then move the game to a neutral site rotating it around the country. The NFL will be playing a Super Bowl outdoors in New Yawk.
I wouldn't mind having a playoff...for all of the reasons that you guys mention... But the devil's advocate in me says that the bowl system is a good thing and would be destroyed. Playoff games are fine...even in cold-weather stadiums...but are you really going to travel to watch your team play in however-many-rounds-you-choose-to-have games? I realize that attendence ain't so hot in some of the lower tier bowls anyway...but are you going to draw all that well for all those playoff rounds? I hate to put the almighty dollar sign in here but money does talk and ******** walks. At the risk of alienating many folks here (because a playoff would undoubtably be fairer)...I just have never believed we could do anything other than Dave's Bowls-Plus-One.
Thanks for the realism Stu. There are many factors to consider as you mention. I think the color and tradition of college football would take a big hit if large scale playoffs were the only focus. Gone forever would be the days of OSU-UM for the Roses although that has taken a hit anyway with the BCS. Introduce playoffs and the hit is even more devastating. But I guess some just don't care about all of that and have to have the playoff even though plus one includes 4 teams with an opportunity. I don't see that there are near as many reasons not to have a plus one and I think it would actually increase interest in those bowls participating.
So let's see how about the Beef O'Brady Bowl on Dec 19. Rutgers vs UCF. Is that the bowl we need to preserve? Or may instead we have say Oregon vs Oklahoma? Hmm....let me think! If the bowls are that important, call it the Beef O'Brady Bowl, Call it the Cotton Bowl, I don't care, it will sell out and the networks will be dying to show it, and that will just be one of 4 games of that caliber on that day.
Stu, I hear you but as it relates to attendance, I've got to believe that the playoff games attendance would be superior to the bowl games.....because they will be meaningful. Meaningful in the sense that the winner will have an opportunity to play for the title....the loser not. Fans will be more inclined to travel for a meanigful game -v- a meaningless game in Shreveport or Charlotte or Atlanta or Nashville....in addtion it will also be held at somebody's home venue....and that somebody will either a) be a traditional power with a rabid fan base that will sell out regardless, or b) be an up and comer for whom the opportunity to play for the title will be a HUGE draw.....I see no problem with attendance... As it relates to weather, my 11 yr old nephew playing in the central Ohio pee-wee playoff tournament yesterday in Pickerington, OH ....7:00 AM kickoff, 27 degrees and snow flurries.....standing room only.
An 8 team playoff would give the best of both worlds. You only pull out basically the 8 BCS game teams, the rest can still go to existing lesser bowls as a reward. As far as attendance... first round would be at higher seeded team's stadium. I can guarantee you they would ALL sell out. The first two rounds could be played directly after the regular season in early December, avoiding most weather problems that might occur later. The semi games could be played at either home stadiums or neutral sites (whichever turns out to work best), with the champ game for sure at a neutral site. I would travel two weeks to see my team play for all the marbles!!! I suspect a lot of other fans would too.
That's a HUGE selling point....for me personally, the only three bowl games I have attended in recent history were the title games only....not the Rose Bowl or any other of the BCS venues. If they were in the title hunt, it is a much bigger draw for me.....I'd go to a playoff game in Columbus in December - independent of weather - over a less meaningful game in any warm weather/vacation venue anywhere.
Of course.....that is if they have reopened it for public consumption after being shut down by the authorities after word got out of Stu and G-mans pending arrival....! The only additional accessory required for a cold weather game is the obligatory beer glove!